Goodbye old Twitter, hello angry users

People still on the old site design told they'll be upgraded to New Twitter "very, very soon"

Ah, change. Everything changes, always, but everything changes in different ways. Some things change slowly and gradually, some things change quickly and instantaneously.

For Twitter, it’s the former.

The old Twitter design, which was completely revamped and rolled out to users in September 2010 under the name #NewTwitter, is finally going extinct. While users who never upgraded have for months been shown alerts at the top of the browser, urging them to switch to the new site layout, some have decided that they liked things the old way.

Unfortunately, they won’t have that luxury for long.

The browser-top alert has changed to say, “You will be upgraded to New Twitter very, very soon.”

We’ve reached out to Twitter to see if there’s an official ETA on when old Twitter is going away for good, but they won’t say:

“Also, it's worth noting that there has been a banner at the top of old Twitter, warning users that it would go away, ever since new Twitter launched. The changes today were simply that the color is different and we say ‘very, very soon’ instead of 'soon' -- just to make sure old Twitter users are aware that the switch is approaching.”

Frankly, I never understood why people wouldn’t upgrade themselves. New Twitter, pure and simple, offers a better experience for reading tweets, seeing extra content, checking out users you don’t know and more.

But then again, people just like what they're used to. Just ask Facebook. The social networking everybody loves to hate (whenever an update rolls around) takes the “quick and instant” approach to change, often inciting massive, useless backlashes from the site populace. Letting non-college kids sign up, the News Feed, new user profiles--Facebook doesn’t usually ask. It just rolls out the updates, watches the complaints wash over, and moves right along.

Did Twitter lessen the pain of the switch by letting users hold on to the old site for as long as possible? Probably not.